Tea--Calming the Mind--Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Dear Brave Souls: ON CALMING THE HEART AND MIND Im lighting the fire in the fireplace for us tonight, and here is some nice tea for you and some nice fresh fruit cut into nice squares for you. I'd like you to just be comfy and let us just breathe together slowly and calm our hearts. Try this: Breathe in boldly, hold for a few seconds, no stress. Then exhale and make a goodly blowing sound whilst doing so, and do not breath back in for about 3 seconds. Then breathe in again boldly... Do this three times in cycle to reset your parasympathetic nervous system to 'calm' and 'calmer.' Then this, take a sip of warm tea, your favorite. Tea for reallies, or tea in your imagination. Let the warmth or coolness of the tea be just right. Let it be pleasant and healing at the same time. It you dont know teas, imagine a fruit you love and think of that flowing down your throat, nourishing, 'peacing' your body. My old Vasavada who grew up in an occupied brutalized India and who was seen as a third class citizen by the occupiers, Vasavada who marched with Gandhi for freedom from oppression for all, was a fiercely peaceful person-- meaning capable one might imagine as much as serving me a soft boiled egg and a tea that he made with his own beautiful old brown hands, as possibly pulling a soul dagger from his sash to protect the innocent and the just. Just right. Vasavada and I talked so often about the cris de cœur of ourselves, of the world-- how how how could the world be so cruel, how could people be so ill of mind and twisted of heart so as to do so much harms to innocent and helpless others. Vasavada said many things: Often this: Drink your tea now. Let us do pranayama together, and we will see. Pranayama is breathing, breathing to untangle the tangles of the body, breathing to bring to rest and silence the alarms that are already sounded for mind and heart to take note --that mind and heart are filled up now, for they have done so already. And then what? In those moments at Vasavada's fire, we were no longer in Time but the Timelessness of No Time. The holy state of No Time. And drinking from that chalice, there is peace, and there is mourning, and there is joy. For in that state of balance, one sees not only the tragedies of the world, but also the new and burgeoning and ripe and rippling and leaping to the good --that billions of human souls do and live right now. This is how we live deeply in the moment, by not being tipped too far in grieving for a time, writ by a Greater but not so that we remain to die with the fallen---and/ but rather also at the same time be ever gradually arighted -- and strengthened in outlook and attitude-- by what is well, what goes well, what will yet be well. Some might say, well, that avoids reality of the evils of the world. I'd say no. Not even close. Many of us throw ourselves into graves daily and howl to the heavens with sorrow. But/and also, we see the rainbow stairway from the stars we came from, and it is ever filled with souls on their way here, good good souls on their ways here to join the other good souls already here. Even as we see souls returning up the staircase to go back to 'First Home," we also here on earth for as long as we live, are the legions-- who stand for and with the innocents. We represent as a group of calm fierce hearts, the missing outriggers of many parts of the overculture. Our job is not only to decry. But to steer. Together. When we were children, we hollowed logs to make dugouts. We rowed single file. Many of the mothers ran downstream screaming to get out of the water, it was too dangerous. But from there, we found other ways to row together in life. Many still tell us to get out of the water. We were carried into this life in water, we take in water to stay alive. We are not getting out of the water. We'll keep rowing... together... toward the good... as we are called. And on the encampments on the river at night, we'll build a fire and steep the tea and cut the fruits with a silver bladed knife and share the nourishment all around so that all around keep going. Drink your tea now. Let us do pranayama together, and we will see. Just right. Even though child spirit can be all atangle and distressed, all is well and will be well, ever with the true self, that is, within the soul. Place the child spirit in the soul's presence and the soul's tender and wise motherly care. As I say to you often with regard to the breath meditations I give to you, "rock the child self into calm by conscious slow breaths. Feel the rocking of the cradle of your body with child spirit in it, as you tenderly breath the child to calm." I'm sending love and a fire exactly the right coolness or warmth for your comfort, the perfect tea at the perfect temperature... and the breath of peace, true peace, for your heart and mind to turn the dial to 'calm.' Bold breath now... together... and then slow, slow exhale... hold for 3 moments, then again... and again dr.e